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No. 24] KHANDELA INSCRIPTION OF YEAR 201
161 The second figure was read by Bhandarkar as 7 probably because there was an intercalary Asbädha in V.S. 879 as required by the date of the Sakrāi inscription. The figure may be regarded as having some resemblance with the sign for 7 as found in certain early medieval inscriptions in which the second curve, however, stands below the first and not to the right of the first as in the Sakrāi inscription. It has somewhat closer resemblance with the figure for 6 found in some epigraphs in which also the right curve is considerably lower. But in V.S. 869 there was no intercalary Ashādha, although such an irregularity may not preclude the possibility of the reading altogether.
Secondly, the palaeography of the Sakral inscription is cortainly later than the Madhuban plate of 631 A.D. This will be clear to anybody who cares to compare the forms of the letters k, 9, 9, n, p,m,y,r and 6 as found in the Madhuban plate with those of the corresponding letters in the Sakrāi inscription. Again, the letters g, n, p, m, & and 8 of the Sakrāi epigraph' exhibit slightly more developed forms than the same letters in the Kanaswa inscription of 738 A.D., while letters like j and p have more developed forms in the Sāgartāl (Gwalior) inscription of Bhoja (c. 836-85 A.D.), which has to be assigned to the middle of the ninth century A.D., than in the Sakrāi epigraph. Likewise, letters like n, m and $ in the Sakral record exhibit somewhat earlier forms than the said letters in the Jodhpur inscription of Bāuka, dated V.S. 891 (837 A.D.). Thus the Sakrãi inscription can be quite confidently assigned, on palaeographical grounds, to a dato
etween 738 and 837 A.D., i.e. near about 800 A.D. Bhandarkar's reading assigning the inscripcion to 822 A.D. is therefore no palaeographical impossibility although its scription to the seventh century on palaeographical grounds is certainly unwarranted.
The Khaņdēlā inscription under study, which is a prasasti written in 9 stanzas, begins with the Siddham symbol followed by two stanzas (verses 1-2) in adoration of the god Sasisēkhara or Sūlapāni (i... Siva). Both the stanzas refer to the Ardhanärisvara aspect of Siva. The adoration to Siva is in consonance with the subject of the eulogy, which was the construction of a Saiva shrine. Verse 2 is interesting from the mythological point of view. It states that the sight of Bhavani (i.e. Pârvate) at his side, when Kaitabhāri (i.e. Vishnu) had gone to a festival along with Skanda (Kärttiköya) and Ganapati (Gaņēša) with a view to amusing the youngsters, aroused great passion in Siva and that is why he absorbed her in half of his body. There seems to be an indirect allusion here to the conception of Parvati as the sister of Krishna. According to a well-known Puranic tradition, Vasudēva, father of Krishna, gave child Krishna to Nandagopa in exchange for the latter's child daughter whom afterwards Kamsa tried unsuccessfully to kill. This daughter of Nanda-gopa, the foster father of Krishna, was Parvati herself. The poet has created a happy scene of a brother attending a festival along with his sister's young song leaving their mother with her husband at home. The introduction of the god Vishnu in this section may be due to the fact that the author of the prasasti was devoted to that god.
Verse 3 introduces a merchant (vanik) of the Dhūsara community (vaba), by name Durgavardhana. The Dhūsara community of Sreshthins is also known from the Sakrāl inscription and the Dhūsaras are stated to be a well-known community of the Jaipur area of Rajasthan.'
1 See Ojha, Bharatiya Prachin Lipimala, Plate LXXV (lower half). Cf. also Plate LXXII, upper half, Section V.
Ibid., Plate LXXVI (lower half). • Ind. Ant., Vol. XIX, Plate facing p. 68.
See abovo, Vol. XVIIT, Plate facing p. 96.
* Chhabra's contention that the Bakra inscription is one of the oarliest to use the decimal system of writing numbers is untenable in view of his wrong reading of the date of the rhoord.
Cf. Vishnu Purana, V, 2-3; Agni Purana, XII; Bhagavia Purda, X, 1, 8-4; Def Badgavata, IV, 23 ; eto.
Cf. above, Vol. xxvII, p. 29; Annual Report of the Working of the Raiputana Museum, Ajmer, for the your ending 31st March 1984, p. 2.
